


In Our Time, In Our Blood

by an0ther_dreamer



Category: The Cabin in the Woods (2011)
Genre: Community: waywardmixes, Fanmix, Gen, Picspam, Spoilers, TV Tropes, Tropes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-20
Updated: 2016-03-20
Packaged: 2018-05-27 22:30:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6302722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/an0ther_dreamer/pseuds/an0ther_dreamer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"An army of nightmares, huh? Let's get this party started."</p><p>A The Cabin In The Woods fanmix.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Our Time, In Our Blood

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings for violence and gore, character death, language, drug use and some sexuality.
> 
> Also, this spoils the whole movie. Just, the whole thing.

 The Cabin in the Woods is an American horror comedy film that examines and deconstructs common tropes in the slasher film genre. I can’t really discuss the tropes without spoiling the whole movie. Sorry. Also, I will be linking to TV Tropes frequently. So tell a friend you’re going/set a timer/take a ball of yarn to mark your way; I don’t want you to get lost in there.

 

 

 

 

 

** **

**Smells Like Teen Spirit by Think Up Anger ft. Malia J**  
Load up on guns, bring your friends  
It's fun to lose and to pretend  
She's over bored and self-assured  
Oh no, I know a dirty word

Hello, hello, hello, how low?  
Hello, hello, hello, how low?  
Hello, hello, hello, how low?  
Hello, hello, hello!

With the lights out, it's less dangerous  
Here we are now, entertain us  
I feel stupid and contagious  
Here we are now, entertain us

I'm worse at what I do best  
And for this gift I feel blessed  
Our little group has always been  
And always will until the end  
 

American college students Dana Polk, Holden McCrea, Marty Mikalski, Jules Louden, and Curt Vaughan go away for a weekend to an isolated cabin in the woods. Beneath them a sinister organization full of [cynical employees](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PunchClockVillain) monitors their every move and prepares an arcane ritual that requires five archetypes. Below  _them_  other forces are watching.

 

**Get Some by Lykke Li**  
Don't pull your pants before I go down  
Don't turn away, this is my time  
Don't make demands, I don't take none  
Just say a prayer that it gon' get done

Don't pull your pants before I go down  
Don't turn away, this is my time  
Like a shotgun needs an outcome  
I'm your prostitute, you gon' get some

Like a shotgun needs an outcome  
I'm your prostitute, you gon' get some

  
Jules Louden (The Whore)

 

While normally an intelligent (she’s pre-med) and caring (she initially plays the role of [Team Mom](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TeamMom), worrying over Dana’s recent break-up with her professor and Marty’s habit of driving while blazed) young woman, the operators treated her [blonde hair dye](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PhlebotinumInducedStupidity) with a slow acting toxin that “slows cognition and increases libido”. Marty notes that her[ sexy dancing and lewd behavior](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MsFanservice) is very out of character. The operators need her to embody the slutty “[dumb blonde](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DumbBlonde)” slasher movie role so that she can fill the Whore archetype and they can justify [killing her first](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DeathBySex) (the Zombie Redneck Torture Family attack her while she’s having sex). (“The whore, she’s corrupted. She dies first.”-The Director.)

  
  
**Blood Makes Noise by Suzanne Vega**  
I think that you might want to know  
The details and the facts  
But there's something in my blood  
Denies the memory of the acts  
So just forget it Doc  
I think it's really cool that you're concerned  
But we'll have to try again  
After the silence has returned

'Cause blood makes noise  
It's a ringing in my ear  
Blood makes noise  
And I can't really hear you  
In the thickening of fear

Blood makes noise  
 

After the first kill of Jules, the operators really turn up the heat as the Zombie Redneck Torture Family (The Buckner’s) attack the rest of the characters at the cabin. They pipe in stupidity-inducing drugs and use hypnotic suggestions to [guarantee the victims make poor decisions](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/IdiotBall).

Curt insists that they [shouldn't split up under any circumstances](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NeverSplitTheParty) and moments later a gas is released through the vents. “This isn't right. [We should split up](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LetsSplitUpGang). We can cover more ground that way.” Only Marty is incredulous. “ _Really?!”_  Marty was also the only person who objected to reading the incantation in the journal they found in the creepy abandoned basement. (“Ok, I'm drawing a line in the fucking sand here. Do not read the Latin!”  _Read it,_  says a controller’s compelling voice.) Not long after, Judah Buckner attacks and pulls Marty out through the window and drags him away screaming.

After Dana stabs Matthew Buckner with a knife, Sitterson (a controller) flips a control switch that applies a small electric shock to the knife handle so that Dana drops it without noticing. The college kids are already terrified but the controllers manipulate them into making worse decisions to suit their narrative.

 

 

 

  
**Little Lion Man by Mumford & Sons **  
Weep for yourself, my man  
You'll never be what is in your heart  
Weep, little lion man  
You're not as brave as you were at the start  
Rate yourself and rake yourself  
Take all the courage you have left  
And waste it on fixing all the problems that you made in your own head

But it was not your fault but mine  
And it was your heart on the line  
I really fucked it up this time  
Didn't I, my dear?

  
Curt Vaughan (The Athlete)

 

Curt Vaughan is on the [football team](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LovableJock), but he is also [a sociology major on a full academic scholarship](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GeniusBruiser). He is [handsome, intelligent and competent](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheAce) until the operators manipulate him in behaving like a [jerk jock](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/JerkJock). After Julie’s death he becomes [determined to escape, find help and bring those who murdered her to justice](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Determinator?from=Main.TheDeterminator). However, when he attempts to jump across the ravine on his [motorcycle](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BadassBiker), he crashes into the invisible force field sealing the victims in to the area around the cabin and falls to his death.

 

**Analyse by Thom Yorke**  
It gets you down  
It gets you down  
You traveled far  
What have you found  
That there's no time  
There's no time  
To analyse  
To think things through  
To make sense  
***  
It gets you down  
It gets you down  
You're just playing a part  
You're just playing a part

  
Holden McCrea (The Scholar)

 

Holden McCrea is not really any smarter than any of the other characters, but the controllers have placed him in the role of [the nerd](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HollywoodNerd) and are forcing him to play it. He is in college on a [full athletic scholarship](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LovableJock) for football and in great shape, but the role [sidelines his physical prowess](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BadassDecay). [Nerd glasses](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NerdGlasses)appear for him to wear and he is suddenly able to remember the [Latin](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SmartPeopleKnowLatin) he learned back in tenth grade (“Weird, how it all comes back.”) He is even able to calculate the angle of Curt’s jump across the ravine (“You got a smooth run, and maybe a five foot differential on the other side.”) He is killed by Father Buckner (who had been hiding [in the backseat](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DangerTakesABackseat) of the RV).

 

**Unnatural Selection by Muse**  
They'll laugh as they watch us fall  
The lucky don't care at all  
No chance for fate  
It's unnatural selection  
I want the truth

I'm hungry for some unrest  
I want to push this beyond a peaceful protest  
I wanna speak in a language that they'll understand  
Dedication to a new age  
Is this the end of destruction and rampage?  
Another chance to erase then repeat it again  
 

 

Matthew Buckner attempts to murder Dana, but Marty re-appears and blocks the killing blow with his collapse-able bong. He explains that after he was dragged off-screen by Judah Buckner, “Yeah, uh, I had to dismember that guy with a trowel. What have you been up to?”

He reveals that he’s found an elevator and deduces that someone had sent the Buckner family up to kill them. Dana and Marty take the elevator down into the Facility and find monsters like a werewolf and a wraith in adjacent cubes. Dana sees a man with circular saw blades embedded in his head holding a puzzle ball like the one Curt was playing with in the basement. She realizes that the artifacts in the basement each “summon” one of the monsters below. “They made us choose. They made us choose how we die.” She screams with rage and beats the side of the cube.

After they escape into the Elevator Lobby, the Director speaks to Dana and Marty over the intercom. She apologizes for what they have seen and gone through tells them that their deaths are inevitable and necessary to placate the Ancient Ones. They dodge an armed security team and duck into the elevator control booth. Dana finds [a big red button](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BigRedButton) marked System Purge and presses it; [setting all of the caged on monsters loose of The Facility](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BadGuysDoTheDirtyWork) and[the operators](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HoistByHisOwnPetard). 

"An army of nightmares, huh? Let's get this party started."- Dana

 

**Not A Virgin by Poe**  
I just thought you should know, my darlin'  
Before we begin  
I'm not a virgin anymore

Just thought you should know  
Before you let another lie  
Get through those crooked little teeth  
I don't think you want to start that shit with me

Much better yet  
Tell me something dangerous and true  
Oh yeah, that looks much sexier on you

Careful what it is you say  
'Cause I can see right through you  
On a cloudy day and  
Darlin' I think you want to play  
 

Dana Polk (The Virgin)

Despite being placed into the role of “The Virgin”, Dana Polk is [no such thing](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NonIndicativeName); having recently ended an affair with her professor. That might be the reason that the controllers put her into this role; after her recent heartbreak she would be less inclined to have sex on her weekend away (unlike Jules who is in a long term relationship with her boyfriend who is also on the trip; thus dooming her to be “the whore”). The villains explain that they “work with what they have”.

In horror movie terms she is the [Final Girl](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FinalGirl); the last character left alive to confront the killer, the least debauched and usually the most resourceful. Here the operators are enforcing the trope. They push her to survive the longest (the guards are ordered to kill the virgin last) and one of controllers (Hadley) even admits, “It’s so strange, I’m actually rooting for this girl. She’s got so much heart. When you think of all the pain and the punish...Tequila! Tequila is my lady!”(Hadley has a short attention span and a stunning lack of morals). The Virgin has to be the last to die, or the ritual won’t work and the Ancient Ones will rise.

 

  
**Rabbit Heart by Florence and the Machine**  
You made a deal, and now it seems you have to offer up  
But will it ever be enough?  
(Raise it up, raise it up)  
It's not enough  
(Raise it up, raise it up)

Here I am, a rabbit hearted girl  
Frozen in the headlights  
It seems I've made the final sacrifice

We raise it up, this offering  
We raise it up

This is a gift, it comes with a price  
Who is the lamb and who is the knife?  
Midas is king and he holds me so tight  
And turns me to gold in the sunlight  
 

 

Dana and Marty make it through the carnage down into the Ritual Chamber, where there are five stone carvings depicting the horror movie archetypes: The whore, the athlete, the scholar, the fool and the virgin. The Director of the Facility appears and tells them that these[ five sacrifices](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TargetedHumanSacrifice)must be made of appease the [Ancient Ones](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EldritchAbomination); giant, evil gods who sleep beneath the earth and want to see victims punished for “[being young](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/YouthIsWastedOnTheDumb)” and “[transgressing](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DisproportionateRetribution)” (mostly in ways the controllers manipulate them into). The Director tells them that if Marty is not killed to complete the ritual the Ancient Ones will rise and destroy every human life on the planet. Marty says that maybe the world isn't worth saving if it means killing all of his friends. Dana points a gun at Marty, but before she can shoot him a werewolf attacks her from behind.

 

** **

**Fool by Damien Rice**  
So turn and walk away  
I've overspoken  
Said all that I can say  
I know that I could kneel  
And I could cry  
I could show you how I died  
But what good would it do?  
But give the world another fool

  
Marty Mikalski (The Fool)

Marty is put into the role by the controllers due to being [the stoner](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheStoner) and [deadpan snarker](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DeadpanSnarker) of the group, but he fits the Tarot archetype of [The Fool](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheFool)beyond just being a hippie stoner; he manages to succeed where others fail, often by pure luck. The controllers were supposed to dose his pot with the stupidity inducing drugs given to the rest of the characters, but they missed one of his stashes. So the pot makes him resistant to the other mind-altering chemicals the operators are using on the college kids and keeps him [properly paranoid](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ProperlyParanoid). Unfortunately it also stops the other characters from taking his [warnings](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheCassandra) [seriously](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheCuckooLanderWasRight). This makes him the [only sane man](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OnlySaneMan) questioning the situation. When the controllers underestimate him, due to the role they’re forcing him to fill, he becomes the [spanner in the works](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SpannerInTheWorks) that ruins the ancient conspiracy.

 

** **

**Virgin by Manchester Orchestra**  
You built this house with your hands  
And your time and your blood  
We built this up in one day  
To fall downward and rust  
 

 Mortally wounded, Dana and Marty [share a joint](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OneLastSmoke). Dana apologizes to Marty for almost shooting him, and Marty apologizes for letting the werewolf attack her and causing the end of the world. Dana tells him she agrees that humanity isn’t worth saving if it has to resort to human sacrifices to survive. They hold each other as [the Facility collapses](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CollapsingLair). A giant humanoid arm reaches up through the Facility and bursts out of the cabin at the surface as [the Ancient Ones begin to rise](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt).

 

[In Our Time, In Our Blood](http://8tracks.com/an0ther_dreamer/in-our-time-in-our-blood?utm_medium=referral&utm_content=mix-page&utm_campaign=embed_button) from [an0ther_dreamer](http://8tracks.com/an0ther_dreamer?utm_medium=referral&utm_content=mix-page&utm_campaign=embed_button) on [8tracks Radio](http://8tracks.com?utm_medium=referral&utm_content=mix-page&utm_campaign=embed_button).


End file.
